The Pittsburgh Pirates entered their most recent home stand in dire straits, but, to their credit, the team responded in a positive way
The Pittsburgh Pirates had lost eight of their past 10 games upon coming back to PNC Park and started their five-game stretch off on the wrong foot with a 5-4 loss to the tanking Detroit Tigers Tuesday night. The opener of a short two-game series featured three errors and an equally lethal mental mistake by Adam Frazier, which led to Detroit scoring the winning run.
After that blip, however, the Pirates responded by winning their next four games. Pittsburgh started its streak Wednesday, when the Bucs came back from a 7-1 deficit, cemented with a three-run homer by rookie sensation Bryan Reynolds.
Pittsburgh followed these heroics with three wins over Manny Machado and the San Diego Padres, and Sunday’s game was PNC Park history. The Pirates twice came back from three-runs down in the final three innings to grind out an 11-10 extra-inning triumph.
Here is a “report card” analyzing how the Pirates performed in some of the critical facets of baseball.